a song for europe (les chiens wouaw dans la nuit)

It’s fun (for middle-aged values of fun; turns out I’m better at being nearly fifty than I was at being nearly thirty or nearly twenty - and I was only so-so at being nearly ten) to search for vinyl in charity shops; Sue Ryder in Burnham had David Bowie, Roxy Music et al by the till for twenty or thirty quid a go which was quite right. But those they hadn’t heard of, your Cans, your Steve Hillages, were in the 50p bin.

So this is how I got hold of a copy Dashiell Hemayat’s Obsolete for maybe a hundredth of its transactional exchange value (and I'm not selling); hadn’t heard of him before but the sleeve notes mention Gong - who’re famous amongst people who care about this stuff; if you’ve never heard of Gong, you must’ve been in it - and William Burroughs. My favourite song over the last few months (though not any more; as with Brexit, the moment’s both passed and will recur endlessly for years) has been ‘Long Song for Zelda’ – an odd, late chanson (and not the first to feature sax and/or onomatopoeic animal noises) about a seriously messy night out, Irvine Welsh via Baudelaire. 

That’s William Burroughs talking at the very end of the track, by the way. He made a whole LP with Sonic Youth, John Cale and others in the late eighties; reads from his own work and from Scripture (the Beatitudes, ad-libbing “this guy keeps repeating himself” over them); sings Marlene Dietrich’s most famous song in the original German ("Ich bin von Kopf bis Fuß auf Liebe eingestellt"); sold it on ebay though, didn’t own a record player at the time, this was nevertheless a mistake.

Googling further it sounds as though Dashiell Hemayat (a nom de musique chosen in homage to the detective fiction writer), aka Melmoth aka Paul Smaïl aka Jack-Alain Léger was a strange, talented, self-destructive man all along the line and not just during the early 1970s. I mean, us British had… Syd Barrett? Viv Stanshell? but it just isn’t the same.

You remember I mentioned taking Krzysztof Jaworksi and David Bowie to Fountain Poets in January? I met Marriott Edgar there among others (A. brought ‘The Lion and Albert’; Stanley Holloway made it well-known, but Marriott Edgar originally wrote it).

I like Pa’s sensible pragmatic man-of-the-world approach; he was the original Centrist Dad. Mark my words (say the centrists): the Labour Party won’t hold office again until working class people can learn to be philosophical about their annoying kids being devoured by wild animals.   

('Eh Mushroom, Will You Mush My Room?'... cosmic-hedayat-rumble and cut-ups; 'as stoned as impossible':
you kind of had to be there).

some things just stick in your mind [short story]

This is the time of year when we reflect on is, was, will be and might have been - so, in that spirit, here's my time travel story, 'Some Things Just Stick In Your Mind' which I read at Writers Unchained in Bristol in September 2018, and which was published in Banana Wings #72 (November 2018) as 'Some Things Just Stick In Your Mind: The New Adventures of Vashti Bunyan, Holiday Rep'.

'Saara Cantrell'? That was my soulmate's designated stage name when she was a member of Equity back in the day (true story). 'Iris'? We almost called our daughter that, after Iris Murdoch of course - but then we had a better idea. 

This story's 1,500 words long, so will likely take 5 to 10 minutes to read.

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Some Things Just Stick In Your Mind: The New Adventures of Vashti Bunyan, Holiday Rep.

Dear Postwar Consensus Tours,

We’ve booked an excursion with you to Richmond and environs during the later 1960s this fall. Please could you arrange for Vashti Bunyan, Jerry Cornelius and friends to show us all the cool places?

Yours sincerely,

D.S. Ketelby & Saara Cantrell

Dear D.S. & Saara,

We look forward to welcoming you on our No Satisfaction tour which, we can confirm, will be going ahead despite recent controversy. We will keep this under review, subject to Time Ministry advice.

We can confirm that Vashti is looking forward to welcoming you and other aficionados of 1960s counterculture. Though you have travelled with us before, please read the enclosed guidelines (updated). We particularly draw your attention to the need to take only clothing and products that our Orientation Team supply, to remain in character throughout, and to rendezvous promptly at the return point. The porting of modern artefacts and/or holding of anachronistic conversations remains a statutory offence; any need to send a Retrieval Team will incur extra charges and may invalidate your insurance.

We remind you that while Vashti Bunyan is a real personage and our representative, Jerry Cornelius is a fictional character created by Michael Moorcock, featuring in stories written by Moorcock and others. You will recall making a similar error when booking our 1976 IMF Crisis Weekend Break last year. To recap: while Elaine Paige, Leonard Rossiter and Siouxsie Sioux are real, Jerry Cornelius, The Saint and Ted Heath are all just pretend.

Please do not use ‘this fall’ for ‘this autumn’; neither you nor we are Americans.

Yours sincerely,

Andrew Adonis,

Customer Liaison Officer,

Postwar Consensus Tours

Dear Andrew,

We’re greatly looking forward to meeting Vashti and the rest of team. We will, of course, remain in character throughout and have, in fact, been method acting during the last fortnight in order to ‘tune in’ – as the phrase is – to the late-1960s ‘vibe’. This has gone largely unnoticed in Glastonbury but has raised eyebrows in Street – even more so, Shepton Mallet!!

One aspect of your letter puzzles us: we, in fact, met Jerry Cornelius in a Woolwich branch of Radio Rentals during last fall’s IMF Crisis Tour. He seemed real enough. Nice chap, in fact.

Yours sincerely,

D.S. & Saara.

Dear D.S. & Saara,

One controversial aspect of time travel vacationing is that some travellers have met real people who are close analogues of fictional characters; this may have been your experience, also the experience of others in your party who fraternised with individuals resembling Wolfie Smith and other Tooting Popular Front personnel. At this time, scientists have determined the apparent instantiation of close likenesses of fictional people to be a harmless side effect rather than anything which warrants concern.

We remind you that you and others of your party have signed non-disclosure agreements preventing you discussing with others your apparent meetings with individuals who resembled but were not Jerry Cornelius, Wolfie Smith et al. We would further underline the need to avoid porting, still less showing, anachronistic artefacts. Members of your party showed Wolfie Smith political literature; we only dropped charges in tandem with our overall non-disclosure settlement. Our Research Department advises that deliberate anachronism could, if uncontained, change our present due to so-called Bradbury Effects. These could, for example, eject Britain from the EU, elect Donald Trump as President of the United States, even cause the ‘Information Superhighway’ to become wildly popular rather than the expensive plaything of scientists in research laboratories, with all the unforeseeable disruptions and distractions that this would entail (I think that I just foresaw them there for a moment; I shuddered). I do not mean to frighten you by positing such dystopian outcomes, merely to impress upon you the importance of following legislation and guidance during your holiday.

We look forward to welcoming you to your Postwar Consensus Excursion, but please continue to follow media coverage, particularly our CEEFAX page. Please do not use ‘last fall’ for ‘last autumn’; neither you nor we are Americans.

Yours sincerely,

Oona King,

Customer Liaison Manager,

Postwar Consensus Tours.

Dear Oona,

We’d very much like to enjoy our tour next week; we’re also wondering about booking the Prices And Incomes (January 1979) Experience for ourselves and our children, Jack and Iris, this Christmas.

However, we’re worried by what we’ve been reading in the Manchester Guardian at the weekend and by Monday’s World in Action special– particularly allegations of a four-cornered pitched battle between mods, rockers, punks and emos in Brighton over Easter. If time destabilisation isn’t real, how can this happen – and if the time tourism industry isn’t in crisis, why is the Government preparing nationalisation plans while ‘hushing up’ such incidents? Also, Saara found in our local Goodwill Outlet a ‘compact disc’ offering five hundred hours of ‘free internet access’ by a company called ‘A.O.L.’ Neither of us know what this means, but it has us worried despite reassurances.

Is it too late to request a refund, so we can visit the Three Cliffs Bay campsite near Swansea instead? Anything for a quiet life!!

Yours sincerely,

D.S. & Saara

Dear D.S. & Saara,

Thank you for your continuing interest in further holidays, despite recent difficulties. We would advise, however, that the 1979 Prices And Incomes Excursion – previously the How Close to the Precipice, Mr Healey? Tour – is not one of our designated family experiences. You may wish to consider, instead, the 1951 Festival of Britain Tour, or for older/ less sensitive children, The Suez Crisis (brochures enclosed).

We are sending you, to express goodwill, a voucher entitling you to a 20% discount against any excursion during our 2025-8 seasons; the Department for Trade and Industry assures us that we will be able to honour these vouchers subject to our nationalisation agreement, updated terms of reference and of course any Time Ministry advisements in force at the time.

We cannot discuss the alleged Brighton incident, as any discussion could prejudice evidence which we (and competitors) later submit to a public inquiry.

Speaking more generally, it appears that some problems encountered during recent days were caused by the successful attempt to neutralise a ‘history hack’. During the course of this ‘hack’, well-meaning progressives attempted to change history by visiting President Clinton in December 1996, Ghost of Christmas Future style, and persuading him to keep his anatomy in his pants thenceforth, excepting the marital bed, bathroom visits, hygiene etc. (‘Pants’ meaning pants, please note, not trousers). The aim was to leverage a narrow victory for Gore in the 2000 Presidential Election, thereby preventing the Iraq War and so on and so forth. An investigative team reporting directly to the COBRA Committee determined that this ‘hack’, if successful, would have caused further unplanned changes, including the worsening of the 2008-9 financial crisis and consequent rise to power as Prime Minister of former telejournalist Jeremy Kyle, his newly formed Common Sense Party achieving a parliamentary majority of ninety. Unfortunately the successful neutralisation of the ‘hack’ caused collateral damage, leading to outcomes which have destabilised our industry and, indeed, the world.

In these circumstances and following yesterday’s Commons announcement, we need to remind you that heretofore we have been constituted as a membership organisation rather than simply a leisure provider. This makes various emergency provisions available to us; as these are now in force, we require members to assist with the evacuation of Company Personnel from affected areas. The late-1960s are amongst the worst of these, with self-designated black bloc anarchists continuing their occupation of not merely Warwick and UEA campuses but also much of Coventry and Norfolk – also France’s Charles De Gaulle currently in talks with Rudi Dutschke, Tariq Ali and others, with hopes of ending the civil war in that troubled country. Vashti Bunyan, a valued company asset, has let us know that she now wishes to embrace a simpler lifestyle, away from history(ies) and closer to the rhythms of Mother Earth.

Our Membership Liaison Database indicates that, as you live cheek-by-jowl with smelly hippies anyway, you would be the most suitable household to receive Ms Bunyan and her companion. We have acquired land near Somerton for your resettlement next weekend; in the meantime, company personnel will visit in order to disconnect water, electrical, phone and wi-fi connections in order that Ms Bunyan and her companion can begin to accustom themselves to a more agrarian mode of life. If you do not yet know what “wi-fi” means, please account yourselves fortunate to live one of those areas that has remained relatively safe from destabilisation hitherto.

As you will cease to have access to a telephone and as stamps will become difficult to obtain (except when bartered for produce during infrequent journeys into town), we suggest you communicate with us henceforth by carrier pigeon, or by telepathy which Ms Bunyan’s companion states that he can teach, having learned it from a lama in dreams – not a llama, please note, but a lama, a Tibetan holy man.

We hope that you will be able to view this as an opportunity rather than an imposition; think of it as the chance to experience, if you’ll forgive me, a new England in the fall.

Yours sincerely,

Lembit Opik,

Chief Executive Officer,

Postwar Consensus Tours. 

Dear Lembit,

Oh.

Sincerely,

D.S. & Saara.

Endnote: This story is intended as an affectionate though belated seventieth birthday tribute to Michael and Mary, the best parents in this or any other timeline, who've lived the post-WWII years one at a time and mostly in the right order.

the end of a decade

"Sometimes I see how the brave new world arrives..." 

In terms of its popular music, the 1970s was a by turns entropic and hyperactive ‘hot mess’ of a decade; Abba closed it out perfectly, with ‘Happy New Year’, the ultimate low-serotonin turn-of-the-year anthem – I mean, just listen to the words, they were a sort of Scandi version of The Smiths.

"It's the end of a decade and in another ten years' time...?" 

Of course, we remember what did happen at the end of ’89. If we don’t, we read Timothy Garton-Ash but perhaps we should read Agata Pyzik too. Reflecting on her own childhood (in Poor But Sexy: Culture Clashes in Europe, East and West), she says that “the major cultural feature of socialist Poland [was] high-mindedness”, adding:

“1990 killed many interesting bands who identified with the previous era of resistance. Now Poland was drowned with the hideous poor quality clones of the Western bands and our music industry in a way still hasn’t got out of that crisis, in which it resembles the rest of the world. The [Iron] Curtain was the dam which was protecting culture from money being the only reason it was made. With the obliteration of political tensions, and especially in the newly democratized countries, nihilism, punk, angularity, difficult obscure lyrics, weren’t welcome, opening an era of the new Paneuropean post-socialist realism, in which everything was beautiful.”

As a Westerner, if you were to ask me whether I’d have liked to live or grow up in any of the so-called People’s Democracies then the answer’s no, of course not. I mean, I liked going to gigs as a teenager too but I wouldn't have liked being beaten up by the militia for attending them. Indeed, I’d suggest that from the days of the Marshall Plan onwards, we (meaning Western Europeans) were the main beneficiaries of authoritarian communism in that the hearts-and-minds aspect of the Cold War kept our own ‘ruling classes’ (can one still use that term?) honest – hence the trente glorieuses, income inequality reaching a historic low point during the mid-1970s despite the other travails of that decade and all the rest. The 0.1% don’t have an ideological Other to contend with any more and they haven’t properly reckoned with the Climate Emergency yet; would that they had (on either count), it would concentrate minds.

(See also what St. Augustine says with respect to Rome and Carthage, in the early part of City of God - he asserts, in essence and with 'references back' to previous political debate, that Rome went into a precipitous moral decline with Carthage's destruction. Does anyone doubt that we're living through a sort of Late Empire phase in the West at this moment?).

So, yeah, Happy New Year and that. Here’s to a world where every neighbour is a friend, here’s to Anyone-But-Johnson and Anyone-But-Trump and here’s to the European Union, a battered social democratic bulwark against the worst imaginable outcomes – which I reckon the U.K. will rejoin, probably in the early 2030s: who’s for organising a sweepstake? Better, who's for organising a movement?

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